Longhorns Pitching Upends Islanders, 8-1

Apr 06, 2011

CORPUS CHRISTI - Drew
Vest

's leadoff single in the ninth inning off reliever Josh Urban
broke-up Texas' no-hit bid, but the Longhorns posted an 8-1 victory
over the Texas A&M - Corpus Christi baseball team on Tuesday
night at Whataburger Field. UT starter Sam Stafford did not allow a
hit and walked four in seven shutout innings for the win in front
of a crowd of 6,159 at Whataburger Field.

Erich Weiss, Paul Montalbano and Tant Shepherd each had three
hits for Texas in the win, with Shepherd driving in three runs. Jacob
Perales drove in the only run of the contest in the ninth
inning for the Islanders. With the home team down to its final out
and Trey
Hernandez on first, Perales crushed a pitch to dead center
field for an RBI triple to make the score 8-1 Longhorns.

Todd
Simko picked up the loss after allowing three runs in the first
two innings. Chris
Pena, Justin
Meza, Tanner
Green and Trevor
Foss all tossed shutout frames out of the pen for the
Islanders. Stafford struck out 11 men in his 119-pitch performance,
while Urban surrendered two hits in the ninth and punched out
two.

With two outs in the top of the first inning, UT struck first,
as Shepard put the Longhorns up 2-0 after lining a double to right
field past a diving Perales to score Mark Payton and Erich Weiss.
Simko again ran into a rough spot in the top of the second inning
after a two-out single to Paul Montalbano. Montalbano advanced to
third base following a stolen base and a throwing error on Jumpy
Garcia. Brandon Loy then dropped a single just in front of Chris
Vergne, making the score 3-0 Texas.

Roland
Botello came in relief in the third inning, opening the inning
with a leadoff walk to Lucas Kephart. Shepard moved Kephart to
second with a hard single to left field, and then Jordan Etier
moved the base runners over with a sacrifice bunt. Kevin Lusson
that made the score 4-0 visitors on an infield single, then Jacob
Felts drove in another run on a ground out to Logan
Nottebrok. Montalbano delivered the third run of the inning off
Botello with a single up the middle, putting the deficit at
6-0.

From then on, the Islanders pen settled in, as Chris
Pena put the first zero on the scoreboard for the home team
working around a two-out single in the fourth. Justin
Meza came in relief in the top of the fifth inning and posted
1-2-3 inning with a punchout. Tanner
Green kept the Longhorns off the scoreboard for the third
straight inning with a scoreless sixth, including a strikeout of
Jacob Felts.

Meanwhile, Stafford was dominant, punching out the side in the
fourth and finishing his outing with two strikeouts and a fielder's
choice in the seventh. He walked Jumpy
Garcia twice in the contest, and also surrendered free passes
to Perales and Matt
Holland.

The Horns put solo tallies on the board in the seventh and ninth
to push the lead to 8-0. Vest, in his first and only plate
appearance of the game, lined a 1-2 pitch into center field to
break up the Longhorns no-hitter. Perales later put the Islanders
on the scoreboard with his two-out triple to that scored Hernandez
from first.

Next up for the Islanders will be a Thursday night meeting at
Houston-Victoria at 5 p.m. Live stats and audio for the game will
be available on GoIslanders.com.